In a panel that featured seven minutes of new footage from The Hateful Eight, Quentin Tarantino told the audience at San Diego Comic-Con the drama would feature the first western score in 40 years by seminal spaghetti western composer Ennio Morricone.

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Tarantino also said he and Uma Thurman were both interested in a third Kill Bill film.

“Never say never when it comes to Kill Bill: Volume 3,” the director told a fan, adding that the potential sequel hinged on the age of the actress who would play the daughter of a character previously killed by Uma Thurman’s jumpsuited assassin, Beatrix.

“Uma and I have talked about it. We both really want to do it. We just have to wait for Vernita’s daughter to get old enough to want to kill her.”

The Hateful Eight, Tarantino and his cast told the audience, will premiere in a super-wide 70mm “road show” version in cinemas willing to switch over to the classic format on Christmas Day. In a video message made for the convention, actor Samuel L Jackson told the audience the special screenings would try to recall a time when films came with “a musical overture, an intermission, a road show, and they also gave you a program” – as with classics like Gone With the Wind and Ben-Hur.

On Saturday afternoon, Tarantino spoke more about the leak of the film’s script, which for a few months seemed to endanger the whole production.

“What pissed me off about what happened with the leak is that normally I finish off a script and I’m done with it and I’m ready to go into production and this one I wanted to do three drafts,” Tarantino said. “There were plot threads I hadn’t tied up yet.

“But even though I yelled and screamed about it, I still kept on doing what I wanted to do.”

Tarantino’s nerd credentials are impressive: he said he had attended Comic-Con not only as a kid, but more recently in a Mexican wrestler’s mask so he wouldn’t be recognized.

I came here two years ago. I wore a mask so nobody knew who I was, and I filled in a bunch of holes in my collection

Quentin Tarantino on Comic-Con

“I came here two years ago,” he said, “I wore a mask so nobody knew who I was, and I filled in a bunch of holes in my collection. I was walking around in a Lucha Libre mask. If you see Blue Lightning, it might be me.

“I remember the days when I used to come here in ‘88, ‘89, and ‘90, and July was the most important time of the year. I made 10K from my minimum-wage job and you’d just save all year. I’d share a room with five other guys and I’d buy lunch boxes – the old Man From Uncle lunchbox, with art by Jack Davis.

Tarantino’s main nerd cred, however, is still filmic: the 65mm lenses he used on The Hateful Eight have a rich history.

“It’s not that they used the same kind of lenses on Ben-Hur - they used these lenses on Ben-Hur!” he said. “They only made one set! They shot The Battle of the Bulge with Marlon Brando and Mutiny on the Bounty on these lenses.”

The panelists mostly talked about the unique experience of working for Tarantino. Among them was Kurt Russell, who starred in the director’s Death Proof as well.

“It’s honestly true that every couple of generations somebody comes along who does it not only differently but who does it his or her way in such a way that it’s inimitable,” Russell said. “I think all the actors that are sitting here would agree: I would wish for every great actor and actress that they would have the opportunity to work with Quentin once.”

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Russell’s co-star, Bruce Dern, was more straightforward. The 79-year-old answered a question about how he “fit into the story” with a laugh.

“I fit into the story I think because the kid grew up watching me be a jerk on television,” he said, referring to his turns playing bad guys in westerns from Gunsmoke to Bonanza and all points in between.

“There’s a couple of things I’ll say,” he continued, “although it’s not directly an answer to your question: the excitement for all of us was to be asked by this man to be in this movie. Quentin has the greatest attention to detail on a set, making a scene, than anybody who has ever lived. If he had a rival, it would only be Luchino Visconti.

“He challenges us not to do our best work necessarily, but to get better. I was excited to come to work every day with this man, because I thought we might just have a chance to do something that has never been done.”

This piece was altered on 11 July 2015, to correctly identify the composer mentioned by Quentin Tarantino.